Rental Unit, Mostly Complete

Well, we are still not finished with our attic construction project. Little details have been completed, and Martin has spent several weekends installing all the lighting fixtures himself, since our electrician is MIA. The painter did finally return, so it is looking so close to finished. I need to take some more photos and perhaps a walkthrough video, but we have been crazy busy these last few months, and I haven't managed to do it.

But we did manage to complete one project: the downstairs rental apartment. We have lovely new tenants who have been living there now since May. I realized I never posted the finished product here, so, in lieu of attic photos, here's a video walkthrough of the rental unit.

Rental Unit Rehab Video

We are also rehabbing our downstairs rental unit, and I have meant to make a separate post with photos of that project, but since I haven't gotten my act together, I'm posting a video of that apartment and its current state of half-done. We were not originally planning to do this apartment at this point, but our tenants moved out in the midst of our construction, and the space really needed an update. Plus, our contractor was really eager to get the job, and he gave us a good deal on the additional work. It seemed like the perfect time to do it, while we already had a crew in the house (and did not think the space would be all that appealing to new tenants, given the amount of construction that would be happening overhead). So even though we have questioned our decision many times (what were we thinking?! we have run out of money for the upstairs, and we started another project?!), I think we will ultimately be happy we did it. And truly, the kitchen down there will be beautiful. I am already thinking we should have done a similar layout to our kitchen...but that's for another time.

Video Update 3.06.10

Here's what it looks like as of March 6...still more to do, but ever closer to the finish line.

We've Got Color

The front stairway is finished, and the bamboo floor is in. Now comes the paint. The colors are pretty hard to capture in pictures, but here's a peek at the first coat.

This is coming up the new staircase (now wrapped in bamboo) on the way to the attic.



Looking back down the staircase to see the orange.



When you come into the bedroom upstairs, there's another orange wall (the far exterior wall. It seems like a lot of orange when looking at it like this, but it doesn't seem like so much when you're in the space.



This view is standing in front of the orange wall and shooting the bedroom (see, now you can't see that other orange wall, hee hee). There are two dark gray walls here and a the rest is our "neutral" color, which I have finally conceded is not all that neutral. Everyone keeps laughing at me for calling it that. Roberto, our painter, says it's green. I think it looks pretty fabulous in combination with all the other colors. Martin is not quite sure about it, feeling that it is pretty green for being our "neutral" color. But I think as the rest of the colors come in (we had painted the Mojito color first), it is starting to come together and look really nice.






In the second bedroom, looking back through the whole attic (the hallway in between has the bathroom and laundry, then you can see the orange wall of the front bedroom).



And here you can see the other side of the bedroom (the sunroom is visible through the doorway, and we plan to paint that room the peacock blue).

Starting the Staircase

It's meticulous work, this staircase building. The first day was entirely spent just measuring and figuring, lots of drawing on the wall, then erasing and drawing again. But Hector worked it out, and finally they started building. First, they built the platforms which would be the landings. And the next day, he did the first four steps.





The next day's work was an additional bit of steps.



From above, looking down the staircsase:



And then they added a few more stairs to get to the winding part of the stairway:



And finally, they made it all the way to the top:



From above:



From the upper landing:



Today, they are working on wrapping the bamboo around the plywood base, so it will be sturdy, safe, functional and...PRETTY!

New Water Main

There's a big hole in front of our house.




The view from the basement of the future site of the new water meter.

Removing the Radiators

They're big, they're heavy, they're awkward. Some of them had to be cut into pieces in order to be carried. But now, they're gone.

And we don't have any source for heat until the job is done...so let's hope for a warm October.

(HA! That's kind of a joke, because I'm back-dating this, it's now November, and it actually turned out to be one of the coldest Chicago Octobers on record. But truly, those were my thoughts when they took away our ugly but very warm radiators. I will kind of miss their steamy sounds.)